


Right Here

by IShipThem



Series: The Motherhood Verse [2]
Category: Sister Claire (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clementine and Claire - the early years</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Here

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Discussions of homelessness, including being homeless due to mental illness, running from the foster system, and so on. Brief mentions of child abuse. Character death. Angst ahoy.

The words come out louder than Catharine intended to:

“What do you mean, PREGNANT?”

And Clementine looks unimpressed. She doesn’t stop washing the dishes, scarred hands submerged in soapy water, nor does she turn around to face her sister. When she finally answers, it’s very matter-of-fact:

“W-w-w-well, you s-see,” she says. “Wh-when a mo-mommy and a daddy l-lo-love each other very much…”

Catharine groans and sinks her face in her hands. “How far along are you?”

Clementine takes a moment to answer. The tiny room fills with the crinkling of plates as she puts them on top of a cloth to dry. “N-no-not very fuh-far along.” She closes the tap. “A coup-p-ple months. I just found out.”

Catharine peeks from behind her hands. Clementine is drying her hands, methodically, over and over, looking at the water as it drains from the sink. Her fingers linger over her flat belly. “Are you going to keep it?”

Clementine curls her hands into fists. “I duh-duh-dunno.”

 

* * *

 

Waiting for their doctor appointment, Catharine watches Clementine. She’s wedged her hands between her thighs to warm them, and to keep from biting her nails. Nothing shows from under her shirt yet, but she’s so thin, Catherine reckons it can’t take too long.

She hasn’t asked about the other parent yet. Well, she knows it isn’t _Gabby._ She also knows their relationship is an open one, but last time she checked, Clem was ace and didn’t care for sex, and wasn’t seeing anyone but her girlfriend. As far as she knew she wasn’t pregnant, though, so maybe Catharine should reassess.

Clementine rocks back and forth. She wonders what would’ve happened if this baby had come any sooner – before her sister turned eighteen, before she finally got out of the streets, before they met again. She wonders if there’s been any incidents before.

Clementine starts rocking harder. She looks around. Gabby couldn’t come – she’s low on spoons, Clementine had said – and no one else knows. Catharine wonders why she hasn’t told Maggie.

The doctor tells them the pregnancy is proceeding just fine, and the fetus seems to be healthy. Catharine notices she doesn’t use the word baby, not even once, and doesn’t comment when Clementine tells her she hasn’t made up her mind yet. “Is the other parent in the picture?”

Clementine looks at a jar of cotton balls intently. “He’s dead.”

They’re all the way to the car before she meets Catharine’s eyes. “H-h-he had sch-schi--schi— _schi---_.”

She slams her hands against the headboard. Catharine doesn’t react. “He ha-had a m-m-mental disorder.” Her eyes go shiny like the blade of a knife. “A-a-and he wuh--wuh-was homeless.”

Catharine doesn’t need to ask; she only turns on the car. They’re in the middle of winter, after all. And it’s a cold city.

“H-he was m-m-my friend.”

She reaches over and squeezes Clementine’s shaking hand.

 

* * *

 

Clementine keeps the baby.

 

* * *

 

Baby Claire comes a month and a half too early, several pounds too light, and in a bathtub of all places. None of it was planned – one second they are eating breakfast, the next Clementine is bent in half with contractions, refusing to go out the door. “S-s-she’s _coming!”_ she hisses angrily, like no one’s grasped that yet. “T-t-there’s no _time!”_

“We can’t deliver her _here!”_ Catharine hisses back, but she knows the expression on her sister’s face only too well. They turn around; head for the bathroom instead of the door.

Catharine ends up delivering her. Gabby helps support Clementine, smooths her hair from her face, whispers her encouragements; all of it in her underwear. All the time Catharine wonders if she’s hallucinating.

It doesn’t take long at all; Claire’s in a mighty hurry to meet the world.

Catharine is the first person on this Earth to hold her niece in her hands; her tiny, tiny head, covered with red hair so bright it hurts the eyes, and so much of it. She’s lighter than a bundle of clothes. And crying so loud already!

Kneeling there, holding Claire in a bathtub, half soaked and half panicking, Catharine catches sight of her sister’s face. Watches it just as she hears Claire crying for the first time. Something she can’t describe colors her features, changes them the way sunlight does. And then she’s reaching for the baby, hungry like she hasn’t seen her in years, decades, _eons,_ like they’re not still connected even now.

“This,” Catharine tells them, arms trembling as she hands Claire over. “Is why I didn’t go into obstetrics.”

They laugh, shaky, pale, all brushing tears off her eyes. Claire’s stopped crying; she’s making little noises now, softer each time, from the cradle of her mother’s arms. Clementine glances at Catharine.

“Yo-you suh-suh-see se-severed arms everyday,” she tells her, voice watery. Catharine drops her forehead to the edge of the bathtub.

“Severed arms,” she says. “Are not my niece.”

Clementine beams at her, a smile like the sun, but a million times brighter. Catharine can’t remember her ever smiling this much. Gabby calls Nib for her, as her shaky fingers simply won’t do the job, and they all linger around the bathtub, drenched and exhausted and grasping at Claire’s tiny hands.

 

* * *

 

The first few weeks of her life, because she’s dangerously tiny, Claire spends in a sling against Clementine’s chest. They’re not apart for a single minute. She gains weight like a champion – but even after the doctor clears her, Clementine still sleeps with a hand over her daughter’s chest.

Catharine watches them, all the time. Clementine walks about with Claire the way dancers do; making it seem natural and easy and fluid when it fact you would probably break something if you tried it. And it’s not that she fits right into motherhood; she doesn’t. But something seems to be at work, something that lets Clementine know where Claire is at all times, never mind if she’s not even looking at her. She just knows.

Baby Claire spends her early life in a sling, nestled to the crook of Clementine’s elbow, watching her mother’s fire and fury with huge, wondering eyes. She rarely ever cries. But when she does, Catharine witness her sister drop anything she’d been doing – from dinner to speeches to protest marches – and put her hand to Claire’s chest, tapping gently and shushing.

“Shh, shhh,” she says, rocking back and forth like gentle waves. “I’m he-he-here. Ruh-ruh-right here.”

 

* * *

 

Claire slows Clementine down somewhat, but not for good. Catharine never really expected her to.

As her niece goes from baby to toddler, Clementine adjusts the sling, putting the girl to her hip instead of her elbow, but she still moves like they’re two halves of the same whole. Every five minutes Catharine thinks she’s gonna bump Claire against a corner, or hit her in the nose with a notebook, or _at least_ get some ice cream on her – but it never happens. One arm curled around her daughter, Clementine maneuvers her out of harm’s way without even looking. Does things one handed that give Oscar small heart attacks. It’s a sight to behold.

On the floor, Claire woobles her first steps, falling into Gabby’s waiting arms as her mother is out rallying the masses.  Clementine comes home with bruises, and Claire lays on her chest and pats it, whispering almost too low to hear: “shhh, shhhh”. Her first words come with a stutter, that disappears in a couple months.

Winter makes Clementine impossible to talk to. They end up screaming one night, when Claire is safely sleeping at Gabby’s house, more precisely on Gabby’s stomach. The twins got a peek at the news earlier and had asked her, lips woobly, why was Auntie Clementine being arrested. Catharine has spent the last half an hour stitching her own sister. She can’t do this anymore.

“HER F-F-FATHER _DIED,_ CATHARINE!” Clementine screams, and fear twists itself like a bear trap in her heart. “YOU T-T-THINK T-THAT’S F-F-FAIR TO HER?”

”YOU THINK IT’S FAIR IF HER MOTHER GOES TO JAIL?” Catharine screams back, and regrets it the moment it leaves her lips.

It’s not, by far, the last time they argue about it. 

Claire’s fourth birthday is three months past when Catharine gets a call from Oscar.

It’s not the police. It’s not jail.

It’s people that didn’t like what Clementine had to say; it’s Claire, bawling like she never has before in her life. It’s Catharine walking in the station to find her batting Oscar’s hands away, wailing that she wants her _mom_ , only her mom is gone, gone, _gone—_

* * *

 

Catharine signs the papers for Claire’s guard with the twins glued to her legs – they babble incessantly at Claire, trying to cheer her up, but she hides her face in Catharine’s neck and refuses to look at them.

“Claire’s our sister now, right, maman?” Rosie asks, tugging at Oscar’s hand on the way home. You can tell her mood by her addressing of Oscar; it fluctuates. Just as Catharine stops being _mama_ as soon as she gets pissed, Oscar becomes _maman_ when she’s scared or sad or lonely.

Oscar squeezes her hand back. “Yes, she is, little rose,” she tells them, low enough to not disturb Claire. “But give her some time, okay?”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know if I can be her mom.”

Oscar stops making tea. Looks up at her. Catharine keeps looking at Claire; asleep on the couch because she freaks if they’re out of sight for more than five minutes. Her everything aches.

Oscar reaches for her hand. “How do you mean?” she asks.

Catherine thinks of Claire’s hair disappearing in Clementine’s curls when she rested her head on her mom’s shoulder. Remembers how they could walk around each other in their minuscule apartment and never bump. Can almost hear Claire happy screaming when Clementine tickled her.

She squeezes Oscar’s hand hard enough to hurt. “What if I make her forget?”

 

* * *

 

Catharine sits with Claire asleep in her lap one night, so late it’s early, and holds her little fingers like she did so many years ago. She’s afraid; she’s terrified; but she was the first person in this whole world to ever hold Claire in her hands.

She’d given her to Clementine, all of those years ago. Only Clementine is not here anymore.

So Cahtarine holds her, and doesn’t let go.

 

* * *

 

At five, Claire starts calling her mama; at five and a half Oscar becomes maman.

It’s even easier with the twins. The transition from cousins to sisters happens so fast you’ll miss it if you blink. On family outings, they start flanking Claire, each taking one side and sandwiching her between them – at restaurants, in the car, walking the streets. Catharine sees the tension bleed out of her little shoulders every time. She still hates open spaces.

At six, they take her to the beach. Catharine’s worried the sea will scare her, but Claire falls asleep as soon as they leave the city, like someone’s unplugged her. So does Lupo. They are alike in that way, like in so many others; the city is full of bad memories.

The beach house is difficult for her. She hasn’t been down ever since Maman died; Bruno and the others have been taking care of it, even though no one lives there anymore. But the kids are ecstatic to finally meet it. They want to get into every single crevice, asking endless questions and towing Lupo and Azi behind them on the process.

“Tomorrow,” Oscar tells them firmly, snatching the twins up and placing them on the couch. “We can explore the house – all five rooms of it – _tomorrow.”_

Marie starts bouncing on the cushions. “Did you use to sleep here, Oscar?” she asks, grinning. Oscar leans down to kiss her goodnight.

“Not in this couch,” she tells them. “The one we had was a sofa-bed. It broke.”

“Awww,” Marie says, grin turning into a pout. “I wanted to sleep where you did.”

“Well, you are!” Oscar is quick to reassure. “We slept in this very same living room, your mama and I. For many years, yes, we did.”

From the mattress on the floor, where she’s got Azi in her lap, Claire asks in a tiny voice: “My mom, too?”

Oscar and Catharine exchange a glance; sitting down at Claire’s side, Oscar reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well,” she says. “Your mother slept in the kitchen actually.”

All four kids turn to her so fast they nearly lose balance. “WHAT?” Rosie screams, which’s probably what all of them are thinking. Catharine starts to giggle.

“In a _mattress_. We didn’t _make_ her,” she clarifies, quick to sooth Claire’s huge startled eyes. “There’s only one bedroom, and she didn’t like sleeping in the living room with Oscar and I.”

Azi wrinkles her nose, climbing down of Claire’s lap. “Why?” she asks them.

Oscar goes red in a matter of seconds. “She, huh. She… well, because I snored! Yes. Very loudly. It was dreadful, just ask your mama. All right, then! Time to sleep!”

Catharine almost pops something trying not to laugh. Claire smiles, her eyes lingering on the door to the kitchen as Catharine tucks her in, keeping watch until her eyelids go heavier, heavier…

And closed.

 

* * *

 

The next night, Claire lingers by the porch, her mom’s box cradled in her lap. Catharine comes to sit next to her. They stay together for a while, listening to the distant sound of waves.

“Mama?” Claire calls softly. Catharine puts an arm around her.

“Yes, dear heart?”

Claire doesn’t answer at first. She cuddles up to Catharine, putting her head to her chest, and begins tapping the box. _Tap tap tap_. Catharine is suddenly reminded, clear like lightning, of a night too many years ago – not in a porch, but in the garden, before social services showed up. Clementine fit in the curve of her arm, then, but not like Claire. They’d been smaller.

 _Tap tap tap._ Gently, against Clementine’s back. Oftentimes the only way Catharine could pat her without upsetting bruises and sore bones. They’d been hungry by then, and couldn’t sleep, so they’d stayed up, huddled together against the night chill. “I’m here,” Catharine said against her sister’s curls. “Right here.”

Claire stirs next to her. “Did my mom—“ She stops, looking down at her lap. Her fingers worry over the worn corners. “Did my mom like the beach?”

Catharine smiles, laughter and sobs caught and mixing in her chest. “Your mom met Aunt Gabby in the beach, actually” she tells Claire, pulling the girl into her lap. “Do you want to hear the story?”

Claire nods, resting her head against Catharine’s shoulder. It takes a couple tries; but finally she can breathe long enough to start telling it, with minimal tears.

In time, it gets easier.

 

 


End file.
